


A Sword Through the Gut

by Nebulad



Series: Run With the Hare || Hunt With the Hounds [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Fluff, Injury, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 05:04:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7831372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nebulad/pseuds/Nebulad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’ve read about alchemy a thousand times and refuse to believe that it is <i>this</i> difficult. It’s supposed to be turning green and my last three batches— well there. Bleached out again,” he snapped, throwing down the lot of it. The mixture smelled like the chemicals Theros used to make his bombs. He opened his mouth to say so, but Dorian wasn’t done. “I wouldn’t even have to try if you weren’t an idiot.”</p><p>He deserved that; after all, he might have actually fired an <i>arrow</i> at the soldier instead of just playing meat-shield. “Say what you will, but you didn’t get stabbed so I count this whole ordeal as my win.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Being stabbed, Theros decided, was an altogether unpleasant experience. It was different from getting knifed— he’d done that before, Maker only knew how many times— and though smaller knives were no picnic to find jammed in your side, they could rarely go so deep. A proper healer could erase the injury from the body in seconds, and even Theros’ clumsy field dressing could keep him fighting for a while.

Dorian had blithely mentioned before how he prided himself on never getting into melee situations. _I’m no stranger to combat, but I suppose an archer could understand the unique pleasure of cutting down enemies before they reach you._ He could, and he was usually very good at keeping them away from him. Save a knife in the dark, he’d never had to meet the point of a sword.

So when one of the Freeman had gone running at Dorian, Theros simply… stepped in front of him. It wasn’t quite in front, since the mage’s back was turned as he set one with a shield on fire, but it was in front of the man with a sword who didn’t care all that much about who met the point. Luckily when Theros gasped— he wasn’t sure if gasping was more appropriate than screaming, but all the air seemed to leave his lungs at once and so that was the sound he made— Dorian’s attention refocused on the nearest enemy.

The heat from the spell that was cast was uncomfortable, but not so much as being stabbed.

Sera and the Bull took it upon themselves to sweep up what was left, and Dorian dropped down beside him, landing roughly on his knees. He tore open Theros’ shirt with medical precision— he still would have teased him for it if he had the oxygen to do anything but gape like a fish— and began the healing process. Theros hadn’t known that he knew anything about healing, as a necromancer and all, but he could feel that somewhere deep inside him, it was working. The going was painfully slow, but breathing was becoming less so. Dorian’s face above him was so poised and focused that he felt a bit like a corpse, but he’d take it in exchange for becoming less of one.

After that events were… blurry. He faded in and out of consciousness in the forest, sunlight beaming down on the cart he’d been loaded onto (courtesy of Scout Harding, he would learn later— he didn’t know who else he’d expected to loan them a cart). He could always see Dorian beside him, though Sera seemed to avoid him entirely (he must’ve looked messy as hell) and Bull was usually trying to coax the scouts pulling him along to take a break and let him take over (turned down because they needed him in case more Freemen approached them, or Maker forbid, Red Templars).

When he finally came to in Watcher’s Reach, he was confident that he had more than a few minutes of consciousness to assess his condition. His stomach hurt, so he didn’t bother looking down. He pretty much knew how that fared, and expected that they were waiting on Inquisition mages to make their way across the Dales to find him. He’d been right in suspecting that Dorian knew very little about healing— a field medic and nothing deeper, stop the bleeding and little else. Here he seemed to be tended by more makeshift medics, only without magic. He felt stitches and felt sick, but only had to hold out until the mages showed up.

He didn’t try to sit up, but turned his head. Dorian was mixing potions and looking put out about it— not an alchemist then either, he presumed. “Know it in theory?” he asked, surprised at how dry his voice felt. Dorian’s head snapped up, then angrily back down.

“I’ve read about alchemy a thousand times and refuse to believe that it is _this_ difficult. It’s supposed to be turning green and my last three batches— well there. Bleached out again,” he snapped, throwing down the lot of it. The mixture smelled like the chemicals Theros used to make his bombs. He opened his mouth to say so, but Dorian wasn’t done. “I wouldn’t even have to try if you weren’t an idiot.”

He deserved that; after all, he might have actually fired an _arrow_ at the soldier instead of just playing meat-shield. “Say what you will, but you didn’t get stabbed so I count this whole ordeal as my win.” Theros was probably better prepared to take a hit anyway. Noble only in name, he’d done things to toughen his skin— in a completely literal sense, he’d played rougher than the Altus ever had.

“I’d ask you if you’d hit your _thick_ skull recently, but I don’t think I’m medically equipped to know the answer,” he snapped in a tone less glib than he’d clearly intended. “You could have _died—”_

“Between me and you, I’d pick me,” Theros said with a staggering certainty.

“ _You_ are going to save the entire world with your stupid hand— we’ve _seen_ what happens when you die. If you could stop _throwing yourself on swords_ for ten seconds and _think_ then you’d be more bloody careful.” Theros did try to straighten— Dorian’s voice had cracked and now he was glowering _away_ from his lover’s prone form (to hide how his eyes looked, because Theros had told him he was easy to read around the eyes).

Unfortunately, even the attempt to straighten up send a bolt of pain through him like the sword all over again.

“ _Hijo de puta.”_ He flopped back on his back and Dorian already had his hand out with the relieving iciness of his healing. Theros kept quiet, for once sensing the mood and letting Dorian work a little magic. He’d received healing before from multiple sources, and the one thing he could say for certain was that Dorian had not pursued healing because everyone was a dead body to him. It wasn’t… an unexpected phenomena, even before the necromancy came into play. He just had love in him so fiercely and fear in him so choking that even people he cared about were simply deaths waiting to take place. It made his bedside manner a little unsettling, and his healing magic felt like ice crystals as he tried to distance himself from the grimness of the situation.

It still felt good against the heat of the wound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shrug emoji. I try so hard. [My writing blog is here](http://nebulaad.tumblr.com), and it's got stuff and shenanigans.


	2. Chapter 2

Dorian still seemed angry a week later, but it was a softened anger that brought Theros medicinal _kanji_ on his unrelenting fucking sick bed. Josephine insisted he be well healed before being allowed to take a piss on his own, and after weeks just staring at the walls of his quarters while different healers drifted in and out (with nothing much to do besides wait for the skin to knit itself) he was starting to feel mad.

“You deserve it,” he was told in no uncertain terms while Dorian sat in his chair (he had a chair now, in Theros’ room as well as the library). “I told you that this was all highly preventable.”

“No credit for the heroics?” he asked with mock offense.

“Heroes are idiots who die young. Ideally you’ll simply save everyone and then spend the rest of your long, unstoried life being unbearably dull,” he said, closing his book and standing up. The healers worked on a schedule that they’d pretty much managed to figure out. To indulge Dorian’s preference towards privacy, they took advantage of the three hours between pointless check-ups as best they could.

“And you would be satisfied with a civilian?” he asked. “A regular man with no magic, no flair, all the spare time in the world?” Dorian sidled in next to him— his wound was no better than a scar now, but scars could break open so they never tested their luck.

“Haven’t I ever told you? I _adore_ a man with enough spare time to do his own taxes.” He wound their fingers together on Theros’ stomach, above the scar, and exhaled as if he were deflating. “If you were to start collecting curios I simply don’t know how I’d keep my hands off you. Do keep that in mind next time you think to step out in front of a fucking sword.” Still so serious about it, still so angry even though he’d lived.

“I’m thinking chess sets. Can never have too many of those,” he said quietly against Dorian’s hair.

“Fool,” he returned fondly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this just involved a significant timeskip and sometimes even _I_ am too lazy to write a decent transition. Anyway, for like a month afterwards Theros starts collecting chess sets until Dorian insists that he stop. [My writing blog](http://nebulaad.tumblr.com) in case you forgot.


End file.
